Fig. 68.—Pueblo water-jar; after Cushing.
The soul or spirit as it is supposed to emerge from a person at death is often represented in Christian art as a miniature man or as a winged monstrosity, as a butterfly by the ancient Greeks, or in various ways by different peoples. Souls of deceased persons may be enshrined in living fruit-eating bats,[58] frigate-birds,[59] crocodiles,[60] lizards,[61] sharks,[62] or other animals. Under certain conditions the representation of any of these forms would be emblematic of the soul.
The dove, flames (or tongues) of fire, wind, and other emblems are symbolic of spirit in Christian art.
B. Phyllomorphs.
It has been frequently remarked that plant forms are rarely represented by savages. A possible explanation may be found in the fact that plant life is so passive, it does nothing actively or aggressively as compared with the irrepressible vitality of animals. Thus it does not impress itself on the imagination of backward peoples.
Another explanation has been suggested to me by Dr. Colley March. The need of ornament is based on expectancy. The eye is so accustomed to something in a certain association, that when this is not seen there is experienced a sense of loss. Among savage peoples the eye is accustomed to dwell on vegetal forms which are always present. It is only when they cease to be present, as in the exceptional circumstances of desert places, or walled towns, that the sense of loss can arise.
Fig. 69.—Design based on a palmito leaf, Bakaïri tribe, Central Brazil; after Von den Steinen.
It is very probable that the reputed paucity of ornamentation derived from the vegetable world amongst primitive folk may be partly due to our not recognising it as such. Their conventions are not the same as ours, and they are often satisfied with what appears to us to be a very imperfect realism. Who, for example, would recognise in Fig. [69] the leaves of a small “cabbage”-bearing wild palm? Yet the pattern on this painted bark-tablet of the Bakaïri tribe of Central Brazil has this significance, according to Professor von den Steinen (cf. p. [175]).